Beauty & Terror

Gentlemen,

Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke once said,

“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”

This reminds me of a quote from my favorite novel The Count of Monte Cristo. When Edmond Dantes is speaking to a young friend he says,

“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life.”

If Edmond is correct, which I believe he is, then only those that know the deepest sorrow can know the peaks of joy. Only those who have walked through the valleys of life can reach its peaks.

Why then our society so dead-set on reducing pain at any and all costs? Why will many men do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to avoid feeling emotional, spiritual, and physical pain?

Because it’s easier and comfortable, and because when men do only what is easy and comfortable they are more easily controlled. There is no threat in a man who can bear no pain. There is no threat in a man who is unacquainted with terror and the overcoming of it.

The burn of a workout is too much to bear, so men watch other grown men play sports instead. The agony of heartbreak is too much to consider, so men shun the possibility of a committed intimate relationship entirely. The sting of divine discipline is too piercing so men don’t speak with God at all.

The enemy invests heavily in propogandizing the avoidance of suffering.

The enemy rejoices in a man’s consumption of transient pain killers.

The enemy preaches to the masses to avoid pain because pain is indicative of misalignment in life and if confronting that misalignment is avoided, so too is the challenge and discomfort of correcting course.

What would happen if pain was not avoided, but accepted?

How would your power and strength be enhanced if terror and sorrow was something you sought to valiantly overcome rather than cowardly evade?

How would the version of you capable of bearing pain and responding resiliently better show up for your loved ones? How would the life of your future sons and daughters be impacted?

The answers are evident; questions such as these need not be pondered on for long.

This is what Rilke is getting at in his poignant poem:

It is not in the avoidance of pain that we are strengthened, but in the overcoming of it,

And for something to be overcome, it must first be confronted. For something to be confronted, it must first be present.

The pain killers(not just medications) so prevelant in our society are meant to keep that which needs to be confronted out of reach.

They are meant to dull the heat from the stove to such a degree that we don’t realize we are burning our finger. It’s only when the temperature is felt in it’s real form that we are compelled to lift our hand.

We feel the temperature by accepting the inevitable pain of life as a mountain we MUST climb. We MUST reach the peak, lest we leave who God has called us to be waiting on the otherside.

That is the real terror of life.

The real terror is, at the end of life, having never met that man of destiny waiting on the otherside. The real pain is the pain that is left by those you leave behind because you never confronted it while you were here.

Pain is a feature of life, not a bug. It will come, that is a certainty.

We get to decide whether or not we confront it. If we do choose to confront it and experience the pain in full force, our reward is the new level of felicity that we are able to experience in full force as well.

Let it all happen to you, beauty and terror… just keep going.

May your courage, bravery, and fortitude be ever increasing.

Onward & Upward,

Nolan

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